Winning the war on rats!

[kimntep]

Well, tired of sweeping up rat turds out of the coop, plus the added fear of them hurting my girls because they are obviously the size of a small cat..I resorted to Motemco Brand green "Hawk Pellets"..no, not for hawks, but they are supposed to eradicate rats like a hawk. I sprinkled a generous portion in the 2 holes where I thought they were entering and covered the holes with rocks. Upon inspection yesterday morning, all of the pellets were gone and I happily swept green rat turds out of the coop! It's supposed to take a few days, so I hope to be nearing the end!

P.S. No risk of secondary poisoning of the chickens!

 

[chickened]

Thanks for sharing I am always looking for a better rat bait.

 

[kimntep]

Quote:
I just went out to clean and all of the bait I put out yesterday is now gone, plus very little rat poop in the coop..and what is there might be leftovers from what I didn't sweep out yesterday. Yay!!!

 

[onthespot]

Keep putting that bait out until they are not longer eating it. Rat smell brings other rats. It could take a month or more for them to taper off. During that time, I don't block access or plug holes. I want as many rats access to the bait as possible. All are invited to the party, LOL. Careful with the feces though, prevent the chickens from accessing them, or you could end up poisoning them too.

 

[kimntep]

Quote:
It says online that there is no risk of secondary poisoning to the chickens, but I've only put in places where they cannot reach. I will continue to put it out as I did think about the smell. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[colebarnhart]

I'm far from an expert but have a little bit of experience from when I had a rat problem when I lived in Florida. Just a suggestion, but you might want to put out a water source for the rats also in addition to the poison. Not sure what the rat enviroment is (i.e. rural, suburban, pond or lake close by, etc), but the rats can eat lots of different poisons and it might not kill them, without water. The only reason I'm saying this is because you said that your seeing the poison in the rat droppings. If the poison gets consumed and is disolved properly the rat should die before it's able to defecate again. So you should be seeing a dead rat instead of poison filled rat poop.

 

[kimntep]

Good point about the water. If they are smart, they are drinking out of the ladies' waterer and there's also a pan of water in the run as well as one under their favorite tree in the yard. Also, we live on our tree farm, so there's lots of drip lines within 50 feet of the coop.